It’s time to pull together

Wednesday

Nov 7, 2012 at 3:15 AM

As these words are being written, voters across the country have finished streaming to the polls. As they did, headlines predicted it could be days or weeks before election results were known in some races — the latter if the proverbial chads hang again.

With that in mind, the editorial board here at Foster’s Daily Democrat has chosen to avoid predictions or cherry picking some early election results that could eventually prove incorrect. Instead, we would like to take this opportunity to offer some thank you’s as this onerously long campaign season closes.

First, to voters who braved long lines at many voting precincts, thank you for putting up with campaigns that all too often accentuated the negative instead of the positive. Hopefully, as exit polls are analyzed in coming days and weeks it will become clear that voters have finally had it up to their eyeballs with smear tactics and overall negative campaigns.

Thank you also for patiently standing in line, especially in states were voter I.D. and voter verification laws slowed the process. Your perseverance speaks to the value of our representative form of government — the envy of much of the free world.

We would also like to thank poll workers who put in exhausting hours, and may be called upon to supervise painstaking recounts in coming days. While voters may have been inconvenienced by spending seeming endless minutes in line, it is the faithful poll worker and supervisor of the checklist that toiled all day long and well into the night to make sure the process works.

Finally, thanks go to the candidates who will win, lose, and — temporarily in some cases — tie.

As voters, it is easy to take for granted those who throw their hats into the political arena. However, we should not.

It takes a massive commitment to spend endless hours, days, weeks and months campaigning. It takes the patience of Job to explain and re-explain where you stand on the issues. It takes even more courage to sometimes admit you don’t have all the answers.

Then, as noted above, there is the abuse. Liar, cheat, hypocrite, philanderer, swindler ... are just a few of the terms we can print. Unfortunately, we have heard worse — and so have the candidates.

As voters we sometimes forget that those running are often our neighbors. We may have even called them friend before we learned of their politics. They run businesses that provide us with goods and services. Or they shop at businesses whose owners might politically vote otherwise.

And come election day some will be chosen to represent us — even if they did not receive our votes. Those who yesterday we condemned will tomorrow be asked to protect our interests in the state Legislature or in Congress.

It is on this final note that we recall the relationship between political opposites — President Ronald Reagan and Speaker of the House Tip O’Neil. At the end of the day, these two statesmen were able to put politics in the drawer and enjoy each other’s company.

If there is one thought the editorial board here at Foster’s Daily Democrat would like to leave with voters it is this. Regardless of who won on Tuesday or in recounts to come, we are all in this together. That means, win or lose it is time to come together in civility and purpose to drive our state and nation forward in common purpose. That is the American way.